


Like Turning the Pages of a Book

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Banter, Books Can't Drink Doves Don't Make Milk and Aziraphale Doesn't Groom His Fucking Wings, Disgusteningly Sweet, Drinking, Drunk Silly and In Love, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Short & Sweet, Tenderness, Wing Grooming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 13:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19464514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "I do mean it!" Oh, you're so-so kind, 'n you take such good care of them! How swanish of you. Do you preen?""Sometimes! Gotta preen for S-Someone, y'know, y'know - you sound like a dove! Talkin' all like that!""I'd be a pretty dove."





	Like Turning the Pages of a Book

"It's _hot_."

"That'd be the wine, one of 'em Gewey-Gewürtz-Gewww-"

Crowley's slurring tickles Aziraphale's ear. His nose wrinkles. "Gewürztmister." He nods confidently, sinking back against his chest like a familiar nook one fancies a good read in. Cozy.

"Well, that's not right."

And insufferable. "Well neither is this heat. 'M flushed, and-and it'll damage the books, too!" Really, Crowley is far too radiant, just like the sun, also bad for the books and too close for comfort, but too far away all at once. Confounding, it is. His brow knits together. Too hot, it is, thighs pressed together and all this breathing business. Bad for the books. Downright awful. Hellish, even.

"Can't."

"Hm?"

"Can't. Books can't drink. Got no lips. Not even a mouth." Now he nods, sagely, wine glass nodding along with him, despairingly lacking all but a few precious droplets of his friend's lovely Gewürztraminar. Ginger and lychee buzz on his tongue. He grins, crooked and split, thinking of how warm it is on Aziraphale's rosewater cheeks as well. 

Aziraphale pouts instead of topping him off. The bottle sits poised midway, but alas, the angel is fussy, and the demon is wavering. 

"Alright, alright. Since you won't miracle yourself a damn North wind or somethin'," and how could he not, with him looking pleased as punch before he's even lifted a finger?

Nothin' like stretching the cramped old things, anyways.

Unfurling his wings takes up the entire couch with an admittedly dramatic SNAP, knocking more than a couple books from their perilous perches (only to be refitted by a hasty blink). There's that flutter, that whisper of ether and wind, of sailing and void, and a pleasant sigh.

He really ought to stretch them out more nowadays. 

"Gorgeous," Aziraphale murmurs, so Crowley flaps them repeatedly until his own flush stops creeping up his neck and he's giggling along soon enough. Still, he cooes, undeterred, "I do mean it! Oh, you're so-so kind, 'n you take such good care of them! How swanish of you. Do you preen?"

"Sometimes! Gotta preen for S-Someone, y'know, y'know - you sound like a dove! Talkin' all like that!"

"I'd be a pretty dove," he agrees.

"Hm. They produce milk for their young, y'know that?"

It earns him an eye roll, and his shoulders shake with both laughter and the comfortable weight of his steady wings. 

"No. Absolutely not, wrong."

"Ostriches?"

"Good heavens."

"Parrots."

"My dear."

"Pigeons!" He snaps his fingers, nearly spins upright in his excitement 'till Aziraphale snags his arm and tethers him back down (how warm Crowley's wrist is beneath his palm, clothed as it is). 

"But I don't see how that corra-correlates, at all!"

Crowley points a waggling finger at him then, inches from his face. He blinks. Crowley doesn't. Beautiful eyes, he has. "You. You got 'em too. Giant ol' things, same as mine."

"Not the same!"

"You're right. Messier than 'ell."

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

"Not!"

"Show 'em then! Your, Yours, bring 'em out already, c'mon!" He's got a smile, damn it all, and a lack of sunglasses that he just can't resist either, oh.

Aziraphale wishes he could scowl as he turns about, lest they get tangled like storks in a fishing net, even as his own pair billows out (gloriously, he might add, a touch prideful and a lot drunk).

"See?" They are absolutely, gloriously disheveled. Rumpled and ruffled, tufts here and there and everywhere, sticking straight up and straight out and straight sideways too, an utter birds nest of feathers, exactly the same as the curls atop his cherubic head. Cozy, as he would say. So if he puffs his chest out a bit, what of it?

"They've gone to shit, angel!" Crowley squawks - of course, of course, his untidy little angel with feathers and books strewn about and alike, of course!

The wine reddens all the way to his ears, the same hue as the passion fruit undertones even while his wings flap and bumble behind him, rustled. He gapes, stares, jaw dropped; he picks up his wine glass instead, miraculously full, drains it with a scoff (or two, heavens!), leaves his jaw on the floor and exclaims, "Fix them then, if you're so inclined! Hmph!"

Bastard's face is too smitten for such a slight. Oh, it's completely unnecessary, Aziraphale's ire has already melted away and restocked with love, adoration and complete fondness, before Crowley's bone delicate fingers have brushed the first feather. Still, he trembles. Or perhaps it's those hands, he can't be certain, combing through with such keen tenderness, such careful reverence. Like cradling a treasure as slippery as the sands of time on a hot summer day. 

The ensuing silence is peaceful. Crowley works gently, yes, but diligently, plucking loose leaf pages and crumpled bookmarks from his wings as easy as pie. From time to time Aziraphale will sip his wine; or bring it to Crowley's lips, or replace it with his thumb, or, once or twice or maybe twenty times, his own. 

Neither speaks, until a funny little twist of the wing catches his attention.

"Bloody windmills, these things," he says, "they _spin."_

"No they-no they do NOT, Crowley!"

Cackling and giggling, they end up falling over each other and tangling themselves anyhow, all knees and elbows and jabbing corners - "Ow, angel! Watch it!" "Not spinning so much now, hmm?" "Oh, I'll have you spinnin' alright!" - until they've sorted themselves out and slotted together warmly.

They kiss, for a while. Trading whispers of intimacy and shared breathes and the slick slide of tongues, before Crowley's wings begin to ache and Aziraphale is pulling him up a the first flex and awkward shuffle. 

There's no need for words after that. Entwined in a way that only practiced lovers can manage, they groom and preen one another. Lovely fingers tuck frazzled primaries into place and soothe frayed, neglected edges while paper worn hands stroke neat lines, like following the ink of a beloved, well tended to and favorite book. Gentle kisses follow suit. Crowley shudders at the heat of a mouth on the arch of a wing; Aziraphale's laughter tinkles like bells when Crowley counts down the length of both with his tongue, just to make sure the number matches. 

Cozy, for certain. 

**Author's Note:**

> first good omens fic! hoping to write more and i wish i was god damn sorry about the preen for satan bit but i swear to g od it happened naturally. jk lol i regret nothing ever
> 
> anyways find me on tumblr @dandelioncrush! send me prompts! ask me hcs! talk to me abt these absolute idiots! >:-)


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